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“…bada bing, bada boom…”

So. The Caravaggio story gets better yet: according to the scholar Vincenzo Pacelli, the artist did not die of malaria or of anything as dull as that; he was taken out by hitmen from the Knights of Malta in a Vatican “state-sponsored assassination”.

Crikey.

I know what you’re thinking: why isn’t someone, anyone, making a movie? (You are, aren’t you? Well, you should be.)
Relax, already. I’m on it.
All I need is my favourite director, my favourite art critic as consulting ‘expert’, and someone who isn’t sodding Julian Fellowes to turn the most thrilling, rambunctious, bloody tale in the entire history of art into a screenplay.
Here are two of the above, Martin Scorcese and Andrew Graham-Dixon, expressing their Caravaggio-love:

A perfect match, no?
And their film would be a huge improvement on Jarman’s 1986 Caravaggio, surely? A worthy enough take but mired in an effete British ‘arty-ness’ which was, for me, somewhat undermined by an 80s-coiffed Sean Bean playing ex-Spandau Ballet member Ranuccio while emoting in a Sheffield accent thick enough to spread jam on.

No, Caravaggio doesn’t need ‘arty’ or effete, he needs foul-mouthed, brooding, trigger-happy grit.
He needs The Sopranos, where, just as in the shady back-streets of Baroque Rome, everything is a point of ‘honour’ and a ‘funny look’ will get you your face sliced.

So there’s our writer: Sops creator and and script-man-in-chief, the estimable Mr David Chase. Imagine if you will a scene exactly like this, in italianate ‘Noo Joisey’ accents, but with tights and a horse:

Works for me.
I’m also tempted to audition Christopher Moltisanti (can’t think of his real name. Who cares?) for the role of the man himself, but if I’m honest he’s second choice. Top of the list (it’s my film, remember) is Aidan Turner, most well-beloved for his Byronic turns in Desperate Romantics and Being Human:

Like Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, he looks fabulous in black.

Finally, of course, I need a capo dei capi, an alpha male whose authority is unquestionable, a wiseguy with a finger in every pie who’d have you topped as soon as look at you: I need a ‘Pope’.
Yup, in the absence of Brando, and with sincere apologies to Gandolfini, there can be only one: Big (not literally) Al:

Seems to me I’ve done all the hard work.
So c’mon, Martin. What’re you waiting for?
A little ‘persuasion’?

(Still working on a title: all suggestions gratefully received. Try to include the word ‘badass’.)